MSU basketball: Video analysis of MSU’s win over Colorado in Maui
Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch breaks down MSU’s win over Colorado and previews the Spartans’ game against Memphis from a beach in Maui.
1. I’ll have what Jase Richardson is drinking
LAHAINA, Hawaii – You spend an offseason thinking the transfer portal might be the answer and then a freshman like Jase Richardson shows up and reminds you: Don’t stop prioritizing high school kids. Don’t decide who they are based on recruiting rankings. You just never know. Richardson wasn’t supposed to be this. Not this quickly. Not six days after a pretty nasty roll of the ankle.
The Michigan State freshman guard continues to be the Spartans’ most efficient offensive player, their top guy under pressure and sometimes their best offensive player entirely.
He was again Monday as MSU, now 5-1, dispatched Colorado, 72-56, in the quarterfinals of the Maui Invitational, setting up a matchup with Memphis in Tuesday’s semifinals (6 p.m. ET) at the Lahaina Civic Center. An athletic, sharp-shooting Memphis team upset Connecticut in overtime Monday, though it didn’t look like much of an upset.
Richardson, drinking from the fountain of youth or benefiting good genetics (and from the care from MSU’s athletic trainer), bounced back Monday from an ankle sprain with 13 points, hitting 6 of 8 shots, including MSU’s first made 3-pointer (after beginning 0-for-14) with 14 minutes left in the second half to put the Spartans ahead 47-36 in a game that was never again really in question.
Richardson takes the lid off the basket. He makes offense easier for a team that doesn’t always find offense easy. MSU was plus-19 with him in the game. That’s six points better than any of his teammates and for much of the game it was considerably more than that.
“He has a lot of things to his bag,” Colorado senior guard Julian Hammond said. “Overall, when he gets downhill to his left hand, he’s hard to stop.”
For a while, Richardson’s smooth shooting off the bounce and “slithering drives”, as Izzo described them, allowed MSU to keep pace as Colorado stayed afloat with outside shooting. Then, his bucket to make it 27-23 MSU helped trigger the run that gave the Spartans separation for the rest of the game.
MSU won this game comfortably because of its defense and rebounding and scoring in the paint, and because of Richardson.
“He’s got a very high, high, high basketball IQ,” Izzo said. “We call it ‘Catch and go, go and catch.’ He has the ability to see things before they happen, so he decides to catch the ball already on the run, and that helps him get in that paint area.”
He’s been a revelation, a ceiling-raising, season-changing freshman. We’ll see how his ankle responds to three straight days with this sort of stress on it. So far, so good.
2. Tough start, strong game for Jeremy Fears
Jeremy Fears Jr. had one of those starts to the second half Monday that had Tre Holloman off the bench in a hurry. Fears couldn’t get MSU’s offense going early in the first half, either. But he settled in and took control. This was a good game for him in that regard.
He finished with eight points on 4-of-6 shooting, with six assists, two turnovers and a steal in 23 minutes, creating with the ball on a string in the second half.
He was exactly the point guard MSU needs him to be down the stretch. The matchups will get tougher. But he grew into this game as well as he has any game this season. He looked and played like a floor general.
Let’s see what he looks like Tuesday against Memphis and Wednesday against another good team. He had a lot of moments Monday — against a below-average team — when he looked like a guard who could lead MSU places.
“Jeremy is getting better,” Izzo said. “He is not where we need him to be because there are times athletically that I just don’t know if he trusts himself yet with his leg. We’re kind of running into screens. That’s what happened the first two plays of the second half.
“But I’m going to keep pushing him, and he keeps digging. Now, the beauty of it is he bounced back and really did a nice job pushing the ball and getting some things open.”
3. A good game for Szymon Zapala, who raises MSU’s floor at center
Center Szymon Zapala has had a solid start to his MSU career. This, though, was maybe the second time this season he’s stood out as a real presence on the glass. Some of that was aided by the matchup — Colorado’s 6-foot-10 Elijah Malone is a bit of the lumbering type, which allows the 7-foot Zapala to use his size and reach without being out-bounced by an athletic big man. That won’t always be the case. Probably not Tuesday against Memphis in the Maui Invitational semifinals.
But Zapala is establishing a pretty good floor for MSU’s center position — and Carson Cooper the last few games is rising to meet it. There will be plenty of matchups this season that work in Zapala’s favor. He’s a Big Ten-caliber big man and an aggressive rebounder. MSU badly needed that in its portfolio. When you couple the addition of Zapala with the considerable improvement of Jaxon Kohler on the boards, it goes a long way toward fixing one of the glaring issues that’s plagued the Spartans in recent years.
Zapala finished with eight rebounds (five on the offensive glass), Kohler had seven, Cooper six and MSU out-rebounded Colorado 42-29 and it felt like an even more decided advantage. Again, partly the matchup. We’ll see what it looks like the next couple days.
“Their bigs, they battle,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. “I can’t say enough about the Zapala kid. I mean he just beasts you. The Kohler kid. Those guys rebound the heck out of it.”
Zapala has some limitations to his game. On one end of the court he’ll battle for two offensive rebounds and a put-back and, a few seconds later, give up a jump hook or slip to the basket by Malone, who, to be fair, is a skilled offensive player — that’s why he’s out there. Cooper is a better one-on-one defender. Kohler, though playing mostly power forward, is MSU’s most complete big man and, I think, MSU’s center in the Spartans’ best lineup (Kohler, Coen Carr and three guards).
But while Zapala can be out-quicked or out-jumped, he’s always 7-feet and not afraid to use it. We saw the effect of that Monday.
“Offensive rebounds is me showing that I care and I want to win,” Zapala said. “It’s a winning play that I can do to help the team.”
This column was updated to add quotes and video analysis.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
